Seattle Forward

Bruce Harrell's Vision for Seattle's Future

Yesterday, Mayor Bruce Harrell addressed the people of Seattle and shared his vision for the future of our city. I've provided links below for you to read or watch his speech.

 

I have returned to City Hall at the Mayor's invitation to help him with strategic initiatives, and I'm delighted. It just feels good to be back and fully engaged working to advance Mayor Harrell's agenda.

 

As the Mayor highlighted in his remarks today, there is a lot to do, no shortage of challenges right out of the gate: homelessness, restoration of parks and public spaces, public safety, the longstanding inequities we see in education, economic opportunity, and criminal justice, to name just a few.

 

You can read the Mayor's address here or watch a video of his swearing-in and speech here. I believe you'll like what he has to say and the vision he casts for Seattle.

 

The Urgent and Critical Importance of Preschool For All

If we set our minds to it, Washington State could make high-quality, universal, voluntary preschool available for all of our three- and four-year-old children. And, we could do it in just ten years.

 

Should we set out on this journey? That's the key question.

We have nearly 60 years of research documenting the value of preschool for our youngest learners. High-quality preschool is certainly not a panacea, but over 60 years of research shows us it can have dramatic, life-changing benefits for our children. (Click on the image to the left or here to read and download the PDF.)

 

Preschool done right produces huge benefits, including a very strong economic return-on-investment for society at large. Frankly, the decades of research paint a very clear "why wouldn't we do this?" picture.

 

Former State Representative Ruth Kagi — Washington's decades-long champion for children — and I, along with several academics, published a detailed policy paper yesterday on the value of universal preschool. We believe high-quality preschool is essential for our state's three- and four-year-old children if we are to successfully address the inequities we see in education, economic opportunity, criminal legal system involvement, and adult earning power and health.

 

Our state already provides limited preschool services through the Early Childhood Education Assistant Program (ECEAP) and the federal government's Head Start program. But these combined programs only reach about 30% of our children statewide.

 

Here are a few key facts to keep in mind as you consider our proposal for universal preschool in Washington.

• Washington ranks 38th among all states in preschool enrollment for 4-year-olds and 17th for 3-year-olds. We have failed, so far, to provide all of our state's children with the strong and fair start they need and certainly deserve as they begin their journey to adulthood.
  
  
• Approximately two-thirds of the public preschool classrooms in Washington are only part-day. This fact represents a vast, harmful barrier for working families who need full-day services to keep working.
• Because of opportunity gaps, nearly 50% — one-half — of Washington's five-year-old children arrive at Kindergarten already behind on six age-specific measures of learning preparedness. These children face a steep climb as they attempt to catch up. Think about this for a moment. Due to lack of opportunity, one-half of Washington's five-year-old children enter Kindergarten already behind. This is a red-flag warning to the political leadership of Washington that our systems, policies, and practices are creating life-long harm to children and our society.
  
  
• Today, public preschool tuition subsidies are provided to families with incomes below $37,100 per year. There is almost no assistance for families earning more which means families with moderate-to-low incomes are left on their own, unable to afford quality preschool services for their children. 
  
  
• There is a severe shortage of qualified preschool educators and facilities in Washington. This is why our proposal for Washington Preschool for All is designed to be phased in over ten years; we need time to do it right. 

Implementing Washington Preschool for All is good for children and families, and it's good for our long-term economic growth and sustainability. High-quality preschool is a public good we should diligently pursue.

 

There is another compelling reason these recommendations are essential right now. President Biden has proposed universal preschool for America's children as part of his American Families Plan and the Build Back Better legislation. It's being considered by Congress now. If adopted, the framework we recommend in our policy brief will set Washington up to fully implement universal preschool and take full advantage of the federal dollars that will flow to the state.

 

I've written a lot about preschool, including the Seattle Preschool Program. You can review all of these earlier musings here.

What Yesterday's Election Means for Seattle's Future

There are still votes to count but it is clear from last night's results that the pragmatic, rational progressive candidates came out on top. Finally!

 

Congratulations to Mayor-elect Bruce Harrell, Councilmember-elect Sara Nelson, and City Attorney-elect Ann Davison. Each of you campaigned hard, shared your vision for our city, and achieved stunning victories. Well done.

 

This is very good news for Seattle's future, something I wrote about last January 5 in my Seattle Forward column. I'm repeating it here because it's more important than ever as our newly elected officials take office and begin the process of governing.

 

Here's what I wrote last January. I'm very confident our new leaders can make this vision even better and work to achieve it.

 

Seattle needs a vision reset.

 

The mayor is not seeking re-election. The school superintendent has resigned. The police chief was pushed aside by the city council. The coronavirus pandemic has left us isolated. Downtown is desolate. Where and how we work is being transformed. Many essential workers are struggling mightily to keep up and pay the bills. Our infrastructure systems are inadequately maintained. First responders are overloaded and stretched thin. Campers have taken over many of our parks, green spaces, and sidewalks, preventing others from accessing them safely. Ideological and political divides are pushing us further and further into our dogmatic corners. Herein, opportunity presents itself. 

 

The urban theorist Richard Florida argues cities and surrounding regions will thrive as we move beyond the pandemic, just as they have following previous calamities: “Covid-19 is a once-in-a-century catastrophe, but it also hands us a once-in-a-century opportunity to rebuild communities to be more equitable and more inclusive, as well as more livable.”

 

America has lifted itself from calamity before and, unexpectedly, created a more equitable and inclusive society. Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett document these sweeping recoveries in their new book, The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again. They propose a return to a “we” approach to public policy, business practices, and community affairs, a new communitarian mindset, if you will, instead of the intense “I” focus that permeates American society today.

 

Religious leaders are making the same plea. Pope Francis, in his latest book, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future, encourages new approaches to bridge our divides, focused on making the world safer, fairer, and healthier for everyone. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times traces today’s crises to the loss of a strong, broadly shared moral code and the elevation of self-interest over the common good.

 

From Ideological Extremes to Common Purpose

 

So, while Seattle’s city government is adrift, consumed by the tyranny of the urgent and ideological extremes, and, in my opinion, lacking a broadly shared overall vision for where the city is headed, let’s grab this opportunity to cast a new vision of the city we want to build for an equitable and inclusive future for everyone.

 

I would guess most Seattleites desire an economically and culturally vibrant city built on a foundation of excellent schools, clean energy, efficient and diverse transportation options, affordable housing, and robust arts and sports entertainment. I also believe we sincerely want to tackle two of the most persistent challenges we face – racial inequity and how best to help those living unsheltered.

 

So, here’s some vision casting for your consideration; hopefully, it stimulates further discussion.

 

Confessing Original Sins

 

Let’s start by being a city that openly acknowledges our nation’s original sins of slavery and the vicious slaughter and horrible treatment of Native Americans, and the persistent racism these sins birthed — real estate redlining, mass incarceration of nonviolent offenders, police violence, banking discrimination, public education that leaves so many behind, to name just a few. These racist practices and policies became woven into the fabric of our daily lives, crushing in their consequences. If we committed to honestly wrestle with this history, we would be guided by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s warning, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We would give voice to those most affected by these wrongs, work to mend the damage, and make economic investments designed to build opportunity and wealth within the affected communities, a form of 21^st Century reparations if you will. We would be a city that reaches high toward racial equity and justice for all.

 

Focus on Children

 

How about a city that so loves, nourishes, and invests in all of our children that they soar and push the limits of their potential. If this were our vision, we would follow the science of early child development in the all-important birth-to-five window of opportunity, making sure every child gets the strong and fair start they deserve. We’d do that by making high-quality, affordable, and accessible childcare available to working parents, so no family pays more than 7% of their household income for the childcare they need. We would provide free, high-quality, universal preschool to our three- and four-year-olds so every child enters kindergarten ready to learn, erasing the kindergarten-readiness gap that today sees one-third of all Seattle children and one-half of children of color start school already behind. Tragically, kids who start behind often stay behind, which is why it is so crucial to invest early in what works best to prepare kids for kindergarten.

 

And, we would erase the racial inequity that has existed in our public K-12 schools for far too long, a dysfunctional system that every year leaves behind about a quarter of our children of color when they fail to graduate from high school. Done right, these efforts would buttress the work of parents and — as the evidence clearly shows — would achieve measurable and wonderful outcomes for our kids: higher education achievement, fewer teen pregnancies, less involvement in the criminal legal system, better health, and higher earning power as adults. These steps alone would transform lives and be a major step toward racial equity and lasting economic prosperity.

 

Shared Prosperity

 

How about a city that continues to pursue public policies designed to strengthen economic opportunity, like we did with the higher minimum wage and paid sick-and-safe leave, while also, and importantly, honoring our small and large businesses and applauding their job creation. A city that nourishes a win-win compact between employers and employees — businesses thrive and acknowledge their employees as their most valued asset and treat them as such with excellent wages, strong benefits, and long-term retention and development plans. Too idealistic? Take a look at those local companies that have already created exemplary win-win work environments — Costco, Dick’s Drive-In Restaurants, Expedia, Nordstrom, Zillow, Alaska Air, Redfin, PCC Community Markets, to name just a few.

 

Justice for All

 

How about a city that has a criminal legal system that values the dignity and worth of every person, those engaged in criminal behavior and their victims. If this were our vision, we would be a city where our police officers worked diligently as true partners with the natural guardians who live, work, study, and play in our neighborhoods. This would be a city where law enforcement focused primarily on those offenders causing the most harm, especially crimes of violence and crimes directed against our most vulnerable residents — children, the elderly and disabled, immigrants, those experiencing homeless, and those living in poverty. A city where everyone respected and valued our police officers because of their exemplary behavior of dignity and fairness toward everyone. A city where we first and foremost sought reconciliation and restorative justice, but also held offenders accountable to protect the health and safety of all.

 

How about a city that recognized the oppressive harms of untreated substance abuse disorder and mental health crises and offered truly on-demand, medically-based treatment services instead of leaving people to fend for themselves wandering our streets, living unsheltered, some preying on others, and causing further harms. This would be a city that stopped waiting, hoping some other level of government would step in with a solution. We would step up and act to solve this very obvious problem by providing the evidence-based help needed, starting with safe off-the-street housing, like tiny houses, rented hotel rooms, and more enhanced, 24-hour shelter. At the same time, and very importantly, we would stop ignoring, excusing, or allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by the harmful criminal acts some of these same individuals commit, a tolerance that has created chaos in parts of the city and caused many to lose confidence in the city government’s ability to keep our neighborhoods safe.

 

Paying Attention to Basics

 

How about a city that carefully tended its environment and infrastructure — increasing our tree canopy, preserving open space and parks for all to enjoy, maintaining in good order our bridges, roadways, bike, and pedestrian pathways, community centers and sports fields, sewer and storm systems, electrical grid, and our Tolt and Cedar clean watersheds. A city with a maintenance and repair plan rigorously followed and funded, a far less expensive approach in the long run than emergency repairs.

 

Moving Taxation into the 21^st Century

 

Thinking even more boldly, how about a city that champions across the state a fair and equitable tax system to modernize Washington’s unjust, inadequate, and antiquated system that extracts a higher percentage of household income from our poorest families than it does from our wealthiest. As our local economist and nationally-recognized state tax expert Dick Conway has said, “If you want to address income inequity, adopt a state income tax and eliminate all other state and local taxes.” A tax system created in the early 1900s can’t adequately, nor equitably, serve our needs today. We would be a city known for advocating tax modernization based on fairness and sensitivity to our current economic systems and practices.

 

Lifting Up the Common Good

 

How about a city that unites around the common good, works to understand different opinions, and practices the politics of inclusion and compromise without the divisive rancor and personal attacks so common today. A city that restores the “we” spirit Putnam and Garrett describe, and that Pope Francis and Rabbi Sacks have prayed for. A city where people come together to achieve shared goals, just like we’ve done in the past with the cleanup of Lake Washington in the late 1950s which stopped the discharge of 20 million gallons of raw sewage into the lake every day, the adoption of Forward Thrust in 1968 that created community centers, fire stations, swimming pools and expanded parks across the city, the Sound Transit light rail system being built now, voter approval in 2018 of the Seattle Promise free community college benefit, and the remodeling of our libraries and fire stations in recent years.

 

How about a city with elected officials who cared more about the effective and efficient delivery of city services — about governing — than about advancing their own political careers or scoring points with the radical fringes of our political landscape. A city where people viewed city government as consistently and effectively getting good things done for everyone. A city where we valued the common good above all else. Imagine what we could do and what it would mean.

 

Just imagine. A child born in Seattle immediately cared for not just by her parents, family, and neighbors, but by an economy that gives her parents time off to nurture her and quality childcare and prekindergarten services that foster her development and allows her parents to continue working. As she grows, she attends an excellent public school that works equally well for everyone, regardless of the color of their skin. She enjoys parks and playgrounds as a healthy way to meet friends and stay active. She witnesses the most vulnerable among us protected and cared for. She knows the police officers and firefighters in her neighborhood, and they know her and understand her family and their community values. As she enters the workforce as an adult, she finds many well-paying jobs to choose from at iconic Seattle businesses. Is that too hard to imagine?  I don’t believe so.

 

Yes, sometimes Seattle’s government and political environment can feel like it’s locked in a hamster wheel, constantly moving, yet not progressing. We — you and I — can change that with a compelling vision for the future, a future based on shared values, and an unwavering commitment to the evidence of what works to strengthen the common good.

 

This is my vision for Seattle. What’s yours?

Learning by Doing

I want to tell you about a young kid in Seattle.

 

His family was poor. Conflict in his home occasionally turned violent. There was sexual assault by an outsider to his family. He didn’t do very well in school because of his at the time undiagnosed dyslexia and attention deficit disorder.

 

As a student in Seattle Public Schools, this young man was labeled “not college bound.” In his senior year of high school, he was rejected for admission to the University of Washington.

 

Then something very special happened. His high school journalism teacher in his senior year pulled him aside and said,

Seattle Needs A Vision Reset . . . Quickly

Seattle needs a vision reset.

The mayor is not seeking re-election. The school superintendent has resigned. The police chief was pushed aside by the city council. The coronavirus pandemic has left us isolated. Downtown is desolate. Where and how we work is being transformed. Many essential workers are struggling mightily to keep up and pay the bills. Our infrastructure systems are inadequately maintained. First responders are overloaded and stretched thin. Campers have taken over many of our parks, greenspaces and sidewalks, preventing others from accessing them safely. Ideological and political divides are pushing us further and further into our dogmatic corners. Herein, opportunity presents itself.  

The urban theorist Richard Florida argues cities and surrounding regions will thrive as we move beyond the pandemic, just as they have following previous calamities: “Covid-19 is a once-in-a-century catastrophe, but it also hands us a once-in-a-century opportunity to rebuild communities to be

Where Are We Headed?

The challenges of policing in our country did not arise in a vacuum. They connect to a broad array of factors . . . They connect to the fact that in this country police shootings and police misconduct disproportionately affect Black people. The challenges connect, as well, to the shameful American legacy of slavery, to Jim Crow, to mass incarceration, to the “war on drugs,” to redlining, and to public schools that have and continue to fail Black children.

 

In this context, and at this time, it is important for someone in my position to say clearly — Black Lives Matter.

 

Black Lives Matter in policing.

 

Black Lives Matter in education.

 

Black Lives Matter in our economic system.

 

We must squarely face our history of racism and injustice, and, frankly, that’s something I don’t believe our country has truly done. We will know that we have when all people of color have equal opportunity, equal protection under the law, and never doubt their standing as Americans.

 

I spoke the above words in an address to the City Council on September 25, 2017, when I was serving as Seattle’s interim Mayor. Now, nearly three years later, here we are again grappling with the same challenges in policing and criminal justice.

Pandemic exposes our neglect of children, families

This post was first published in The Seattle Times on April 24, 2020.

The coronavirus pandemic has shattered our feelings of invincibility.

It has exposed deep divides that separate us — inequities in education, economic opportunity, criminal justice and public health. This raw and searing reality is evident in the millions of low-wage workers who have lost their jobs and the disparate impact coronavirus has had on our Black and Hispanic neighbors.

It has revealed systemic failures to prepare, to be ready, even with clear warnings such a pandemic was highly likely to occur.

We shouldn’t be surprised at systemic failures. They are all around us.

Take the threat of climate change. Our response has been piecemeal and inadequate.

Take poverty. We have designed multiple programs to eliminate poverty, spent billions, yet intergenerational poverty persists, and families wanting help must navigate a confusing labyrinth that most of us would give up on very quickly.

Take public health. The pandemic has exposed huge gaps, and we remain way behind every other industrialized country in access to health care.

Take tax policy. We have failed to modernize Washington state’s tax structure. The result is the most regressive, inadequate, and unfair system in the country, where our poorest families pay a far higher percentage — nearly 18% — of their household income in taxes than do our wealthiest families, who only pay about 3%.

But nowhere are our systemic failures more damaging and longer lasting than in the education of our children, where inequity rages on. Until we solve our well-documented education inequities, we will continue to perpetuate a society where many Americans are kept out, pushed aside, held back.

The good news is that a very good solution, a proven solution, is ours for the taking.

We know from nearly 50 years of academic research that high-quality early learning opportunities in child care and preschool for 3– and 4-year-old children can change a child’s life outcomes — better education attainment, better health, higher earning power as an adult, less criminal justice system involvement. Yet, in Washington state we only invest about 1% of our state budget in early learning and child access to preschool services, placing us near the bottom among all states.

Researchers at the University of Chicago have documented that ensuring high-quality early learning is the most important and best investment we can make for our children and our society. Last year, these same researchers documented that these investments can eliminate intergenerational poverty.

Yet, we don’t make the level of investment that’s required.

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed our failures and drawn attention to who is harmed the most — low-income families and people of color. The same is true in education. We can change this reality by making sure every child has the strong and fair start they need and deserve, beginning in the all-important first five years of life.

As we prepare for recovery from this pandemic, let’s also resolve to erase education inequity and intergenerational poverty by adopting three proven solutions:

First, a strong system of high-quality child care for infants and toddlers, so no parent is held back from working or continuing their education.

About 30% of working parents in our state report they have quit a job or school because they couldn’t find or afford child care. As an interdependent society — something the pandemic has vividly reinforced — we should subsidize quality child care and make it affordable so working families don’t pay more than 7% of their household income on child care.

Businesses need this, too, to ensure a reliable and capable workforce.

Second, universal, yet voluntary, high-quality preschool for our 3– and 4-year-olds, free for everyone, just like our K-12 system. As the research shows, investing early in our children will reap huge benefits for all of us. Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Oklahoma, Vermont, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C., recognize these benefits and provide universal preschool.

We must also compensate the educators and staff providing child care and preschool commensurate with the vitally important child outcomes they are working to achieve.

Third, strong supports for young families with children who need an extra hand, like the national Nurse Family Partnership or Seattle’s Parent-Child Home Program. These research-based family support programs improve pregnancy outcomes, improve child and parent health, and begin to expose young children to a broad vocabulary and a love of reading.

With these three solutions, we follow the evidence of what works best. The cost should be viewed as an investment in the common good.

This work is urgent. Almost one-half of Washington’s 5-year-old children enter their kindergarten classroom already behind on six age-specific measures of preparedness to learn — social-emotional, physical, cognitive, language, literacy and mathematics. For children of color, it is closer to 60% who start behind.

 

Children who start behind very often remain behind, and we see the results later in high school dropout rates, criminal justice involvement and the inability to remain employed as adults.

Many of these outcomes can be traced to a child’s first five years, when 90% of brain development occurs.

These efforts will require a significant investment of public dollars, but the cost of the status quo is far greater. We could raise the necessary dollars — about $1 billion per year — by adopting a new progressive, dedicated tax that would help turn our upside-down tax structure right side up. One option is a capital-gains tax, as 41 other states have, on profits from the sale of corporate stocks, bonds and other financial assets. There may well be other revenue options to consider.

What we do today for our children isn’t working. As we prepare to rebuild from this pandemic, let’s seize the opportunity to build a strong, fully integrated and effective early-learning system so Washington becomes the best place in America to raise a family, to prepare our future work force and to erase the systemic failures that have created a scourge of inequity.

Downtown Seattle is Booming, but . . .

Seattle’s downtown is booming.

There are now 328,000 jobs located downtown, a 52% increase since 2010. Nearly 90,000 people now live downtown, including almost 5,000 children. In the decade ending in 2019, 286 new buildings were constructed, 4,050 new hotel rooms were added, 17.5 million new square feet of office space was built, and 27,209 new residential units opened for occupancy.

Since 2010, the number of restaurant jobs downtown increased by 47% and restaurant sales nearly doubled. Each year, 15 million people visit the Pike Place Market; four million enter museums; three million attend sporting events.

These statistics are included in the Downtown Seattle Association’s annual State of Downtown Economic Report presented last week to a cheering crowd of city leaders.

Clearly, downtown Seattle is thriving and driving the overall vitality of the city. And citywide there is reason to cheer, too. Just think about what we have going for us—the nation’s cleanest water, a carbon free electric grid that produces some of the lowest cost electricity in the country, the largest public transportation expansion underway anywhere in the nation, a quilt of wonderful neighborhoods, and a physical environment that offers sea and fresh water on our doorstep and mountain vistas less than an hour away.

All good news, for sure.

Now, here’s the bad news.

Many Seattleites are being left behind and may never participate in a meaningful way in our booming economy. There are many reasons for this stark reality, including families trying to raise young children and having to pay exorbitant childcare costs on top of steep housing prices. One of the most significant contributors, however, is our failure for decades to provide all of our children with the strong and fair start they need and certainly deserve in the first five years of life. This failure perhaps more than anything else has blocked their ability to thrive and achieve their full potential.

Consider this fact. At the beginning of each new school year, kindergarten teachers assess the readiness of their students to learn. It’s called the Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS); it measures a child’s age specific social-emotional, physical, language, cognitive, literacy, and math capabilities. This assessment is key to understanding where kids are in their development and helps guide teachers in their work with individual students.

Tragically, In Seattle, the WaKIDS assessment shows that one third of our children enter kindergarten without the skills and abilities they should have; they are already behind.  And it’s worse for children of color, one half of whom are behind just as they are starting their K-12 journey. Children who start behind, often remain behind.

The inequity in access to high-quality early learning opportunities experienced by so many of our neighbors has been building for decades.  For many working parents, high-quality early learning options are simply not accessible, and even for those who are doing well, the costs are significant, often prohibitive.  While the rest of us enjoy the economic good times, we are ignoring an injustice that shatters a child’s confidence which predictably for some leads to huge negative consequences—dropping out of school, criminal behavior, inability to find meaningful employment, social disconnection—consequences which ultimately affect us all.

We can change this by making sure every child regardless of their neighborhood, the color of their skin, or their family’s economic status has a strong and fair start.

Nearly 50 years of academic research shows that kids who have a high-quality early learning experience in the first five years of life will achieve higher educational attainment, have better health, higher earning power as adults, and less involvement in the criminal justice system. The most recent studies also show that these kids can successfully break the bonds of intergenerational poverty.

A child’s brain is ninety percent formed by the time they reach five. Important social skills—playing well with others, following directions, verbally processing feelings—and cognitive abilities stimulated by exposure to a broad vocabulary and group project play increase dramatically in these early years. These crucial skills are much harder to acquire later without this early foundation.

And yet, not all children in Seattle, or across our state for that matter, are receiving the opportunity for a strong start. Our systems of childcare and preschool are fragmented, too expensive for many working parents, and not designed to achieve the best outcomes. As a result, as the evidence shows, many of our children fall behind before they even get started.

We can fix this decades-long failure if we apply the science of early learning. The return on investing in high quality early learning programs is strong, certainly worth every dollar. It’s the best investment we could possibly make for our children’s sake, and for the rest of us, too.

So, let’s create a universal yet voluntary early learning system that spans the all-important prenatal to kindergarten years with high-quality child care services for infants and toddlers, high-quality preschool for our three- and four-year old kids, and tailored supports for families facing challenges.

We need a high-quality child care system that helps working families afford care if they earn 85 percent or less of the statewide median household income (about $63,000), so they don’t pay more than seven percent of their income for childcare. Families making more should pay on a sliding scale tied to their income. And, as other cities and states do, we need free, high-quality universal preschool for our three- and four-year olds so they are ready for kindergarten. This will bring our communities together, level the playing field for all of our children, allow parents to work and pursue additional education, further strengthening our workforce today as well as the pipeline of talent for tomorrow.

Successfully implementing an effective early learning system is the most effective strategy we can employ to erase the inequity so many are still experiencing despite these economic boom times. 

Washington’s Current Childcare System Punishes Upward Mobility

Former State Representative Ruth Kagi and I wrote this post which first appeared in the Puget Sound Business Journal.

An alarming childcare crisis is impacting every community across our state. And it’s getting worse for families, childcare providers, and businesses large and small.

Over the past couple of months, we have traveled to Spokane, Moses Lake, Mt. Vernon, Yakima, Vancouver, and Aberdeen and listened to parents, childcare providers, and business owners describe this crisis. Too many parents cannot find or afford care for their children and are unable to work.

Nearly one-third of Washington working parents have at one time or another either quit their job, reduced their hours, or dropped out of school because of childcare complications.

These startling facts come from a recently released report from the state’s Department of Commerce, the Association of Washington Business, and Eastern Washington University.

Washington businesses lost an estimated $2 billion in 2017 from employee turnover because families couldn’t find or afford childcare. The impact on Washington’s overall economy was worse — a staggering $6.5 billion lost in direct costs to employers and missed consumer spending.

Quality childcare — a necessity for most working families with kids — is hard to find. But even when it can be found, childcare is cost prohibitive for our middle- and low-income families.

Take King County. Child Care Aware reports that the median annual cost for center-based infant or toddler care is just over $17,000 per child. It’s $15,000 in Snohomish County and $10,500 in Pierce County.

Government-funded childcare subsidies covering about two-thirds of the costs of care are available to some low-income families. But, in a draconian twist that boggles the mind, the co-pays for parents go up dramatically when they reach 137 percent of poverty, about $37,000 for a family of four.

Washington’s current childcare system punishes upward mobility and often forces parents to make a terrible choice between higher pay or maintaining childcare.

Childcare workers are impacted by this crisis, too. As we heard across the state, staff turnover is high and childcare centers are shutting down because the economics of these small businesses don’t work. It’s a broken market — supply is low, demand is high.

Further, the lack of high-quality childcare affordable to all families contributes to another little-known crisis. The majority of children in Washington are entering kindergarten at age 5 already behind in social-emotional, cognitive, language, literacy, math, and physical skills. When kids start behind, many stay behind.

There is a fix to this crisis if we can muster the political will.

The solution is to create a universal yet voluntary early learning system that spans the all-important prenatal to kindergarten years with high-quality childcare services for infants and toddlers, high-quality preschool for our three- and four-year old kids, and tailored supports for families facing challenges.

Washington needs a high-quality childcare system that helps working families afford care if they earn 85 percent or less of the statewide median household income, so they don’t pay more than 7 percent of their income for childcare. And, as other states do, implementing free universal preschool for three- and four-year olds would help our kids be ready for kindergarten.

We have strong evidence from nearly 50 years of academic studies that such an approach would result in higher education attainment for our kids, better health and higher earning power when they reach adulthood, less involvement with the criminal justice system, elimination of intergenerational poverty, and a stronger workforce. Businesses would benefit with less employee turnover and more people, especially women, entering the workforce.

The Washington Legislature has just convened. Tell your legislator to focus on implementing proven solutions to our failure to support working parents and to adequately prepare all of our children for the future.

The entire state will benefit, including our children, families, and the business sector.

A Strong Democracy Starts with High-Quality Early Learning

(Written by myself and former State Rep. Ruth Kagi, this post first appeared in The Seattle Times on March 30, 2019.)

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and some presidential candidates are urging adoption of national early learning-focused child care and preschool for the benefit of children, parents and our economy. The Washington Legislature also is considering continued expansion of our state’s preschool program, funding for child care, and an assessment of child-care costs and accessibility.

There is a very compelling reason these proposals should be favorably considered — the survival of democracy itself.

Strengthening and preserving democracy may indeed rest on how well we prepare our youngest children for a life of engaged, active citizenship and prosperity. Which is why Washington, and the entire country, should adopt crucial, cradle-to-kindergarten strategies that provide every child with a strong and fair start in life.

Education scholar Jonathan Cohen at Columbia University identifies essential democracy-building skills as the “ability to listen to ourselves and others; ability to be critical and reflective; ability to be flexible problem-solvers and decision makers, including the ability to resolve conflict in creative, nonviolent ways; ability to participate in discussions and argue thoughtfully; and, ability to compromise and work together toward a common goal.”

Effective child-care providers and teachers know these very skills can be successfully taught in a high-quality early learning environment where enhancing social-emotional well-being and skills is paramount.

Researchers at the University of Washington have established that the basic architecture of the brain is almost fully developed by age 5, and early experiences are crucial for establishing a stable foundation for future learning. This key child development finding highlights the importance of very early adult-child relationships and communication, exposure to a broad vocabulary, strong social-emotional development, and acquisition of executive-function skills such as the ability to play well with others, follow directions, focus on a task and plan activities. In fact, research indicates that if these skills aren’t learned and practiced in these early years, they will be more difficult to acquire later in life.

So, let’s follow the science of child brain development, and the decades of research we now have that clearly establishes the efficacy of high-quality early learning efforts.

First, we should offer evidence-based, targeted, voluntary home visitation programs, including health screenings, like the Nurse Family Partnership for new parents during and after pregnancy until their child reaches age two and the Parent-Child Home Program, a literacy effort for 2- and 3-year-old children.

Second, high-quality child care for infants and toddlers is essential for parents facing today’s extremely high costs and low availability of quality child-care services. We see the crushing burden these costs have on families in Seattle where the annual median price of child care is about $17,000 per child. Done right, the cost of public subsidies for child care can be recovered fully in the increased economic contribution made by working parents. In fact, a recent study in Washington, D.C., documented a 10 percentage point increase in mothers returning to work because of that city’s early learning child-care program.

Third, high-quality, universal preschool should be provided for all 3- and 4-year-old children. Kids who attend a quality preschool where the focus is on play-based social-emotional skill development show up at kindergarten ready to learn, and the benefits last a lifetime. Seattle started on the path to universal preschool in 2014 with an emphasis on classroom quality and workforce development. Lead classroom teachers with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education are paid on par with K-12 teachers; and tuition support is provided to other teachers who are working toward their degree. As recently reported, Seattle now has the only municipal-government sponsored preschool in the country that meets all 10 national standards for quality.

This type of integrated, comprehensive approach to the important birth-to-5 years will produce tangible results, including better pregnancy outcomes, better education attainment for children, higher earning power when these kids enter the adult workforce, better health and lower involvement with the criminal justice system. This investment will be good for our children, our future workforce and our future leaders.

Let’s equip our children with essential democracy-building skills early in life. Doing so will benefit us all, and it will help strengthen our democracy.

Tim Burgess retired from City Hall in November 2017 after serving 10 years as a Council member and interim mayor. Recently, he helped form People for Seattle, a PAC to support candidates committed to transparent, accountable and responsive governance.

 

Ruth Kagi recently retired from the Washington House of Representatives after serving 20 years as a leader and champion for children.